How will I teach everyone?

When pushed outside your comfort zones, you are forced to grow. As I read the text book, my eyes were opened to the many perspectives of teaching. I have learned that I must be aware of developmental milestones before I can expect a child to act older than he is socially. I must understand that not all children follow the assumed progression that schools expect out of them. It was drilled into me that as teachers, it is not our job to change or fix the way students are, but to support their individual paths. This includes accommodating all of my students' needs so that everyone can do his or her best work and show his or her best behavior.

The text book makes these great points, “We should be highly critical of what shapes curriculum, instruction and assessment in our classrooms.” That, “our test mania has made testing an act of sorting instead of a means to more effectively teach and learn.” Anyone who disagrees needs to get to know the students in our schools. I have witnessed this first hand the difference between teaching to learn and teaching for tests. The outcome of the child who is being taught to love to learn is far greater than the child who just memorizes for next test. I saw a boy with learning disabilities in a CDC classroom raise two hundred points in his reading scale in one year. When the teacher praised him radically for it he was even more motivated to read through his very first novel.

I will make a big deal out of the progress of my students. I will show enthusiasm for what I am teaching them. I will get on their level and invest my time for them. Because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to. I know that they are smart and can accomplish their goals and I want to help them shoot for the stars.

I have found that teaching has to be a selfless career. My passion as a special education teacher is to develop students to their fullest potential and beyond. My goal is to see where my students are presently, find out their individual strengths, and use their strengths to build up their weaknesses. I will try with my whole heart to not write off a kid just because I am having a bad day. That takes sacrifice and a daily choice. I will make it known to them that they are important and they are loved and that the world needs them for who they are. And that is why they are here; to give to the world what they have, because only they can give what they have to offer. No one else can be them. No one else can do their thing the best.

Teach them the joy of learning.

What does teaching everyone mean?

Grand understanding came from the material in my special education course at Carson Newman University. One of the things I discovered and profoundly applaud is that the supreme court concluded that “in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.” Mel Levine, a professor at a University and a medical doctor, said that to treat every child equally is to treat them unfairly. To be honest, before this semester I did not put any thought to this. I just figured people learn the same way and that is why we teach the same way; that the extra stuff was just for fun. I also was under the assumption that all kids who acted disrespectfully and crazy at inappropriate times either thought that was cool, or was just disobedient and their parents did a terrible job teaching them to honor and obey their elders. While sometimes that may be true, a lot of the times the child cannot help it and their parents are embarrassed when their child acts out in public.

As quoted above, if every child was treated equally, meaning they are given the same curriculum, the same tests, and the same standards for learning, that is when the child is being treated unfairly. That child is no longer getting the best education he can get and he is being restricted. And it goes both ways: there is a child who is gifted and automatically understands everything you teach him. Eventually class will get very boring for him and he will tune out or act out, therefore being a distraction to everyone. Or a child has a learning disability and cannot keep up with the pace of the class. Eventually he will give up on ever learning anything, accepting the assumption that he is dumb, and will either tune out or act out – or both.

Teaching everyone means investing in the individual child and his or her needs. This includes relating to them, getting on their level. Finding out what amazing person they are and what their interests are. From there you can determine what mode of learning best suits them; what draws them in and what curriculum will work best.

Teaching everyone means being prepared to go beyond any previously set boundaries for yourself. This includes researching the best game to teach a concept in math that the kids are struggling with; practicing many different ways to teach how to solve equations; taking your lunch time to talk with a student who is having an off day due to being exhausted from yesterday's chemo therapy; or staying late after school to sit with the kid with fetal alcohol syndrome whose parent was late picking her up due to another hangover.

It means taking into consideration all of the students' strengths in your classroom, and figuring out a way for them to grow in those strengths. Going the extra mile to include the kid with Asperger's syndrome who desperately wants to have friends.

Let us start thinking about the children. Let us think less about drilling them for tests and more about sparking in them the joy of learning. For a lot of them, tests will be over when that high school diploma gets handed to them. The love for learning will stick with them for the rest of their life and may even push them to further their education, making our world better and more productive.

Why does teaching everyone matter?

As teachers, if we spend our lives thinking disabilities are bad, we will respond by excluding the student with a disability, because we think we will avoid negatively affecting other students. If we as teachers understand that anyone could become disabled, then the way we treat the disabled would most assuredly be different. If we move away from negative constructions of disabilities and see challenge, opportunity and difference instead of negativity and fear, we can shift how students both with and without disabilities learn. Is that not the goal of teaching? To develop a person to where his individual potential for learning is maximized? To set aside the misconception that every student learns the same and therefore set up our curriculum and the way we teach exactly same.

No wonder students tune out of school.

We have suffocated any desire to learn by pounding on them facts upon facts all in the name of state tests. So they grow up attending school and barely making it past senior year. Then what? Not only might that child be using your tax money for food stamps because they cannot or will not work to live, but they may end up in prison – a place you fund via, can you guess? Your taxes.

As teachers we are developing the next generation. Meaning, we teach them what they will learn and take with them for the rest of their life. No matter who the child is, what their strengths are, or what their label is, we determine their outcome based on whether we cheer them on or stand in their way. And the manner in which we teach them determines how they will learn, or not learn. In essence, the future depends on us. No pressure.

The future of your community, your country and ultimately your world depends on what you invest into your child. Be careful who you are quick to label “dysfunctional”.

It is that one child you taught in 7^th grade social studies. Who paid you no attention and did not care about “dead guys” or the constitution of his country. The boy you wrote up at least five times a week for yelling out in class, making classmates laugh and causing everyone to get off track. So you checked him off as “the bad kid” just because he got on your last nerves. Besides, he did not care to learn your material. This kid was an easy “Fail.”

Except you did not consider that he had Tourette's syndrome. And on top of that he had the text book definition of ADHD with an emotional and behavioral disorder. Relating to this boy matters because he is a person too. And he deserves to be loved despite his disability that makes it difficult for him to focus. He needs to know that someone is on his side, that someone cared enough to invest in his education so that he can become who he was born to be. To overcome with him the obstacles that makes learning so difficult for him. Because what he really wants to do when he grows up is save lives as a firefighter.

For that boy, teaching really matters. For the next child, teaching really matters. For the children after that, teaching really matters. Until we realize that every child has strengths and are valuable and worthy of a quality education, we are not sufficient teachers.